Retailers are gearing up for their annual “Christmas in July” sales, but this year, the early holiday cheer comes with a warning: escalating tariff whiplash may lead to higher prices, fewer options, and major delays for shoppers come December. Behind the scenes, businesses are scrambling to forecast demand and lock in orders for the back-to-school and winter holiday seasons — but unpredictability in trade policy is breaking the very tools they rely on to plan. In this episode, I’m joined by Debd...
Jun 28, 2025•13 min
As we are well into the first half of the year – and here at INFORMS we have packed a lot into these first few months – now is a terrific time to circle back and check in with the 2025 INFORMS President Dave Hunt. We kicked off a brand-new year of Resoundingly Human podcasts back in January with a special double header featuring Dave where we discussed both his goals and objectives relating to INFORMS as well as heard his perspective on the unique and exciting ways INFORMS members are going to c...
Jun 05, 2025•18 min
Welcome to the final episode in our special series of Resoundingly Human podcasts highlighting the finalist teams for the 2025 Franz Edelman Award, the Nobel Prize of Analytics. These finalist projects represent teams from around the world who have leveraged advanced analytics to transform their organizations, address their most significant challenges, and better serve their customers and communities. Prior to the 2025 Analytics+ Conference, I had the opportunity to sit down with 5 of the 6 team...
May 21, 2025•17 min
Looking back, when you were younger, do you wish you had some guidance when it came to making the really important decisions for your future? What college should I attend? Should I buy the reliable hatchback or the fire engine red mustang? Is this job offer right for me and my future? My guest today has created a tool that can do just that, by leveraging decision science technology to support and empower students as they make these important choices! Joining me today is Matthew Brady, tech entre...
May 05, 2025•11 min
Welcome to the latest in our special series of Resoundingly Human podcasts highlighting the finalist teams for the 2025 Franz Edelman Award, the Nobel Prize of Analytics, which will be awarded at the upcoming 2025 INFORMS Analytics+ Conference in Indianapolis this April. These finalist projects represent teams from around the world who have leveraged advanced analytics to transform their organizations, address their most significant challenges, and better serve their customers and communities. T...
Apr 05, 2025•18 min
Welcome to the latest in our special series of Resoundingly Human podcasts highlighting the finalist teams for the 2025 Franz Edelman Award, the Nobel Prize of Analytics, which will be awarded at the upcoming 2025 INFORMS Analytics+ Conference in Indianapolis this April. These finalist projects represent teams from around the world who have leveraged advanced analytics to transform their organizations, address their most significant challenges, and better serve their customers and communities. T...
Apr 03, 2025•21 min
Welcome to the latest in our special series of Resoundingly Human podcasts highlighting the finalist teams for the 2025 Franz Edelman Award, the Nobel Prize of Analytics, which will be awarded at the upcoming 2025 INFORMS Analytics+ Conference in Indianapolis this April. These finalist projects represent teams from around the world who have leveraged advanced analytics to transform their organizations, address their most significant challenges, and better serve their customers and communities. T...
Mar 30, 2025•26 min
Welcome to the latest in our special series of Resoundingly Human podcasts highlighting the finalist teams for the 2025 Franz Edelman Award, the Nobel Prize of Analytics, which will be awarded at the upcoming 2025 INFORMS Analytics+ Conference in Indianapolis this April. These finalist projects represent teams from around the world who have leveraged advanced analytics to transform their organizations, address their most significant challenges, and better serve their customers and communities. T...
Mar 21, 2025•16 min
Welcome to the latest in our special series of Resoundingly Human podcasts highlighting the finalist teams for the 2025 Franz Edelman Award, the Nobel Prize of Analytics, which will be awarded at the upcoming 2025 INFORMS Analytics+ Conference in Indianapolis this April. These finalist projects represent teams from around the world who have leveraged advanced analytics to transform their organizations, address their most significant challenges, and better serve their customers and communities. T...
Mar 18, 2025•17 min
We’re in the countdown to the 2025 INFORMS Analytics+ Conference, in Indianapolis, Indiana, April 6-8, when more than 700 leading analytics professionals and industry experts will come together to discover new solutions to business problems, connect and network, and celebrate excellence in the field. Joining me to help build the excitement for this year’s conference is Dick den Hertog, professor of Operations Research at the University of Amsterdam, who will be sharing a sneak peek of his keynot...
Feb 25, 2025•21 min
Welcome back to part two of a very special interview with our 2025 INFORMS President Dave Hunt. Earlier this month, we released part one of our conversation, during which we took a look at Dave’s goals and objectives for INFORMS in the year ahead, as well as answered some informative but FUN questions about Dave to help our listeners and INFORMS members get to know him a little better. Today, we continue our conversation with a look at how Dave came to be into the field of OR/MS and analytics, w...
Feb 04, 2025•21 min
Welcome to a brand-new year of Resoundingly Human podcasts! Whether this is your first episode, or you are a long-time listener, thank you for joining us and I hope you’ll subscribe for even more great content highlighting the incredible contributions of INFORMS members. To kick off our first episode of the new year, joining me is the 2025 INFORMS President Dave Hunt, vice president at Oliver Wyman, and a 30+ year INFORMS member who received the INFORMS President’s Award for his role in founding...
Jan 21, 2025•14 min
As we close out another year of Resoundingly Human podcasts, I am joined once again by the 2024 INFORMS president Julie Swann, to share a final look back over the past year at INFORMS and reflect on Julie’s time as president.
Dec 28, 2024•12 min
Today I have the pleasure of welcoming back to Resoundingly Human long-time INFORMS member Jim Cochran, professor with the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Business. In addition, I’m joined by Ryan McNeill, deputy editor for the Reuters global data journalism team. Jim and Ryan are members of an investigative team that was recognized with the 2024 Scripps Howard Award for Excellence in Multimedia Journalism for their work on The Bat Lands, a groundbreaking science series exploring ...
Dec 17, 2024•19 min
Welcome to the latest episode of Resoundingly Human, the podcast brought to you by INFORMS, the leading association for professionals and students who apply science, math, technology and analytics to make smarter decisions for a better world. I’m your host, Ashley K. and thank you for joining me to explore how INFORMS members are saving lives, saving money and solving problems. I’m pleased to introduce Tom Stephenson, director of services and strategic partnerships at Simul8 Corporation, who joi...
Nov 30, 2024•25 min
We’re continuing our countdown to the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting, in Seattle, Washington, October 20-23, when more than 6,000 INFORMS members, students, prospective employers and employees, and academic and industry experts will share the ways O.R. and analytics are fueling Smarter Decisions for a Better World. In this episode, I’m joined by Cynthia Rudin, with Duke University, Charles Isbell, with the University of Wisconsin, and Michel Littman, with the National Science Foundation, for a prev...
Oct 21, 2024•39 min
We’re continuing our countdown to the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting, in Seattle, Washington, October 20-23, when more than 6,000 INFORMS members, students, prospective employers and employees, and academic and industry experts will share the ways O.R. and analytics are fueling Smarter Decisions for a Better World. Joining me to give a sneak peek of this year’s meeting is Harriet Nembhard, professor and president of Harvey Mudd College. Harriet is Harvey Mudd College’s sixth president, and a nation...
Oct 17, 2024•22 min
We’re in the countdown to the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting, in Seattle, Washington, October 20-23, when more than 6,000 INFORMS members, students, prospective employers and employees, and academic and industry experts will share the ways O.R. and analytics are fueling Smarter Decisions for a Better World. Joining me to give a sneak peek of this year’s meeting is Koen Peters, head of optimization for the World Food Programme’s Supply Chain Planning & Optimization branch. For the last decade he...
Oct 07, 2024•23 min
We’re in the countdown to the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting, in Seattle, Washington, October 20-23, when more than 6,000 INFORMS members, students, prospective employers and employees, and academic and industry experts will share the ways O.R. and analytics are fueling Smarter Decisions for a Better World. Joining me to give a sneak peek of this year’s meeting is Ann Tracy, Colgate-Palmolive’s Chief Sustainability Officer. Ann leads Colgate’s Global Sustainable Strategy and Key Initiatives, integr...
Sep 28, 2024•25 min
In this episode, I’m joined by a longtime member of the INFORMS community, Richard Larson, post-tenure professor with MIT, past-president of both ORSA and INFORMS, recipient of the INFORMS Lanchester Prize, and author many times over, including his most recent book, Model Thinking for Everyday Life . What’s wonderful about Dick’s latest book, is its innovative and accessible approach to showing you how to think like, well an INFORMS member! The book combines real life examples with Dick’s own pe...
Aug 27, 2024•29 min
This episode of the podcast was recorded live in Phoenix at the 2023 INFORMS Annual Meeting. Keynote speaker Dr. Les Servi shared special insight on his talk, ‘Operations Research and National Security,’ which provided an informative, and dare I say fun, first-hand look at the role of O.R. in National Security! Les is the Chief Scientist Cyber Operations Research at The MITRE Corporation and the immediate Past President of the Military Operations Research Society (MORS), as well as an INFORMS Fe...
Aug 10, 2024•20 min
I am thrilled to welcome back to Resoundingly Human the 2024 INFORMS President Julie Swann, who is also the A. Doug Allison Distinguished Professor and Department Head of the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at North Carolina State University, to share some behind the scenes updates on all that’s been happening with INFORMS!
Jul 23, 2024•12 min
The opioid epidemic is a decades long public health crisis that is only continuing to grow in severity and impact. It is currently the foremost public health crisis in the United States, with its roots tracing back to mid to late 1990s when the highly concentrated prescription pain killer Oxycontin was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in conjunction with the controversial pain as the fifth vital sign campaign, among other factors. As the U.S. government, healthcare system, and g...
Jul 02, 2024•21 min
Welcome to today's episode! We have an exciting discussion lined up as we dive into a fascinating study on TikTok, the wildly popular consumer-to-consumer media platform. My guests today explore how the length of videos impacts their performance on the platform. By modeling viewer behavior and analyzing market performance, they uncover intriguing insights including different optimal video lengths for maximizing viewer traffic. Stay tuned as we unpack these findings and their implications for con...
Jun 28, 2024•36 min
Looking back, I think we can all recognize and appreciate the role that our parents played in shaping who we are. But have you ever thought about the impact you had on your parents, how they view themselves and others? For this episode, we’re going to turn the tables and take a look at the role that children can have on shaping and influencing their parents, specifically, how having daughters can shape how men view and interact with women in the workplace, especially men in leadership roles. Thi...
May 27, 2024•21 min
As we start to gear up for the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle later this year, this week's interview is the latest episode in a special series of the Resoundingly Human podcast, recorded in person at the 2023 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Phoenix. For this episode I am absolute delighted to be joined by Jeff Camm with Wake Forest University. Jeff is delivering the Omega-Rho Lecture: Reflections on the Profession of Operations Research and Some Thoughts on its Future and he is joining me toda...
May 11, 2024•15 min
Welcome to the latest episode of Resoundingly Human , the podcast brought to you by INFORMS, the leading association for professionals and students who apply science, math, technology, and analytics to make smarter decisions for a better world. I’m your host Ashley Kilgore and thank you for joining me for the next episode in a special series highlighting the 2024 Franz Edelman Award finalist teams! The Franz Edelman Award is presented each year to an organization that has made a transformative c...
Apr 12, 2024•17 min
Welcome to the latest episode of Resoundingly Human , the podcast brought to you by INFORMS, the leading association for professionals and students who apply science, math, technology, and analytics to make smarter decisions for a better world. I’m your host Ashley K. and thank you for joining me for the next episode in a special series highlighting the 2024 Franz Edelman Award finalist teams! The Franz Edelman Award is presented each year to an organization that has made a transformative contri...
Apr 06, 2024•11 min
With the 2024 INFORMS Analytics Conference in Orlando, FL, now just weeks away on April 14-16, here at INFORMS we are looking forward to welcoming more than 700 leading analytics professionals and industry experts for opportunities to connect, network, and celebrate excellence in the field. Joining me for a special behind the scenes look at one of this year’s conference sessions is keynote speaker Colonel Kristin Saling, Acting Director, Innovation Directorate, United States Army Recruiting Comm...
Mar 30, 2024•19 min
My guest today is going to help us explore the fun side of data analytics. Evan Wimpey is not only an analytics professional with Elder Research but is also a stand-up comedian! After spending years analyzing data and delivering statistical models, Evan realized that humor is often the most effective way to make dry or technical topics more accessible ... and more fun! Now in addition to his analytics day job, he performs data science comedy at conferences and events around the world, to include...
Mar 16, 2024•23 min